


Their Judgement; My Love

by doodlebutt



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bittersweet, Family Feels, Fix-It, Gen, I AM IN DENIAL, Nerdanel is awesome, Post-Canon, Post-War of Wrath, Reunion, enjoy denying reality with me, in case you hadnt guessed, mags comes home shh, not that fluffy though, the valar are not always complete assholes, this is a fix-it au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5901196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlebutt/pseuds/doodlebutt





	Their Judgement; My Love

Nerdanel did not go with them, when they set out to undo the hurts of the world and bring the Exiles home. She stayed; in the empty streets of Valmar she walked alone, and she shed no tears as she heard the songs of the Teleri ring faintly through the Calacirya. Of five she had been told, of one she knew in her heart, of two she could only hope – though for what end, she knew not.

The rumour of the battle drifted, muffled and low, across the expanse of the Sundering Sea. Alone in her studio she shaped stone beneath her hands, losing herself in the work as a familiar face crystallised slowly from rough shapes and outlines to clean edges and perfect curves before her. She sighed as she studied the distant look of her second son – something beyond the battle itself was happening, she knew it, yet her clouded foresight would not show her the truth of it. Her fingers traced the thin line of a scar that had not been there before the Oath; sometimes it seemed she could see them all from afar, and even her art could not keep them in their carefree youth forever.

When the first of the host began to arrive, she watched in silence. Bright they were and strong, and as she saw the Noldor fresh from battle with eyes shining brighter than their swords images of a time long past rose unbidden to her mind. Yet she stayed, and she watched as those who returned behind the host began also to arrive. And she watched, with cold foreboding in her heart, as the herald of Manwë led one alone towards the Ring of Doom before the welcome could even begin. She saw them go and thought for a moment that she recognised the figure – but then something else inside her broke apart, one of only two remaining, and she needed no herald of Mandos to tell her of Maitimo’s fate.

She did not go to the festivities; nor leave her studio in the days that followed. Flames took shape out of stone – flames and light and the echo of a once-beautiful face. It was abstract, and haunting, and she did not share it.

***

One week passed, and Nerdanel returned to Valmar. Many of the faces were unfamiliar to her (though the memories written in their eyes told of things she knew too well), and those which she had once known did not seek her out for speech or greeting. Yet without knowing why her feet soon turned westward, and passing the golden gates of the city she came at last upon the Ring of Doom.

The Valar sat enthroned in judgement, all eyes bent upon the one who knelt before them. Makalaurë was singing, eyes downcast and head bowed with dark curls falling almost to the grass beneath him. He sang of the Noldolantë – of their fall, their desperate failure – and he sang also of his repentance, his sorrow at what their family had brought to pass. And Nerdanel listened, and tears sprang unbidden to her eyes as she heard tell of how the truth had surpassed even the darkest glimpses of her sight.

The Sun slipped down the horizon as he sang in that watchful silence, and when the first bright star shone out above them he faltered. The song broke as he looked up to where Eärendil carried the Silmaril above them through the vaulted heavens, and Nerdanel saw tears glistening on his face in its unforgiving light.

_Continue, Makalaurë._

He looked away from the stars, and sang on.

***

She stayed, unmarked and unheeded, on the edge of their judgement. Time passed as if in a dream, and she let herself be carried through the years of her son’s exile as the song ran on to its inevitable conclusion. And it came – the final piercing words struck through her heart as she felt the terrible truth of their final decisions; one to abandon what they had killed for in the vain hope of release and repentance, the other to press on in despair until the bitterest end of all...

The song ceased, and Makalaurë waited upon their judgement.

_He cannot return among them._

_This is true; our peace will be fragile for many years now._

_He has shown himself repentant._

_Is that enough?_

_Thrice-damned kinslayer._

_Oath-swearer._

_Oath-breaker; and how should we now judge which is the worse?_

_Loyal son of Fëanáro._

_Repentant brother of Maitimo._

Through this he knelt with bowed head and clasped hands, and Nerdanel in that moment wished for nothing more than to run to him, to take him in her arms like a babe and make the world repent of each injustice that had driven him to this. But she held herself back on the edge of their judgement, knowing this was not her place even as tears blurred her son’s dark figure and she felt as though she would shatter at the slightest touch like so much overworked stone.

_He cannot return among them._

_He shall not be left to the Darkness he once called upon himself._

_Who then shall we entrust him to? He cannot be allowed to wander alone; not until years uncounted have driven away every part of the bitterness and sorrow which finds its cause in the pain he has wrought._

_Who indeed._

Nerdanel blinked and looked up; she felt their gaze on her now for the first time since the Darkening, and the immovable power of it all but froze her where she stood. But she would not be so easily put to flight, and as she stepped into the circle of light and power she held herself with pride and courage.

“You may entrust my son to me.”

***

He barely spoke; not for many days after their journey to the most isolated of her studios (the one she had created when Fëanáro first brought discord to their home, long ago under the light of the Trees). It was lonely but peaceful, tucked away high on a hill amid wind-twisted trees and the sheer cliffs of the climbing mountains behind, and after the first days they began to find a routine of sorts in this strange new home.

One morning found them sitting side by side in a windswept meadow full of dusky blue flowers. Makalaurë reached out to touch the petals, long fingers gentle and almost sorrowful in just that slight movement – but then he had always been the most expressive of the seven, and Nerdanel smiled as she reached up to tuck those wild dark curls behind his ear and reveal his face. She traced the line of that scar which so perfectly matched what her foresight had given his statue, and let her hand fall as she saw the pain in his eyes, so deep that it would in likelihood never truly heal.

“I do not deserve this, ammë.”

“The hurt your thoughts and memories bring you? I would agree with you there, though there are many who would not.”

“No. I do not deserve what the Valar have seen fit to grant me.”

“My dear, do you truly believe that you would have this second chance if you did not deserve it?” She took his hands in hers then, and sought to meet those sad grey eyes. “Makalaurë, beyond all hope you have returned to me. Repentance is the longest road, but knowing your part in those deeds of tragedy shows that your first steps have indeed been taken.” She lifted one finger to raise his chin, lifting his eyes to hers as she had done before – long ago, when he was a young child with no reason to be sorrowful (yet somehow always managing it when the mood took him). “If any among the Exiles are deserving of a chance at that road, you should beyond doubt be counted among them.”

Her son did not reply; only looked away to the far distant lands that lay between their new home and the City of the Valar.

“You need not tell me anything, but I have heard that talking can bring healing.”

The quiet laugh that passed his lips became a sob halfway, and that reminder of the familial pain which had accompanied their road was all it took to break the fragile distance he had been clinging to and send him into his mother’s arms at last.

As Nerdanel held her son close, running her fingers through his tangled curls as she had done when he was a child, she thought of all the pain her children had wrought in the world.

And she decided that she loved them anyway, and that could never change.


End file.
